Attorney General asked to step in on IG findings

Alfred Tutela REGION — The school committee isn’t sure whether $139,000 was misspent by the district’s central office several years ago, so it will let the Attorney General decide.

Wachusett Regional School District Committee Chair Alice K. Livdahl confirmed Monday that the committee voted in executive session on December 5 to forward the May Inspector General report to the Attorney General’s office “for the institution of an appropriate civil recovery action.”

The letter went out on December 8, she said, and the district has received no reply yet.

“It seemed the prudent thing to do,” she said of the committee’s decision, after it conferred with Boston attorneys Elizabeth B. Valerio and John Foskett. The executive session was posted under Open Meeting Law to discuss potential litigation in regard to public funds “that might have been misspent,” per the IG report.

Livdahl said because the issue is still under discussion, she’s prohibited from releasing any details of the session, including the number of committee members voting for or against the action, and whether the attorneys recommended forwarding the report to the AG’s office. She said committee members had a lengthy discussion before voting.

The Inspector General’s report was critical of $139,000 worth of meal, travel, bonus and vacation pay, and reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses for the central office, which the IG said were not within former Superintendent Alfred D. Tutela’s authority to grant.

Livdahl said her letter was not intended to indicate that their attorneys recommended or even commented about forwarding the report, if the school committee decided to take action. Such advice would be protected under Open Meeting Law.

She said Foskett, who specializes in litigation, walked the committee through the various options under Massachusetts General Law that addresses civil remedies to school financial matters, particularly how it might be applied to Tutela’s rights versus citizens’ rights versus school committee rights under his contract.

She said the legislation is fairly new, and therefore does not have a large body of case law around it.

“The attorney general is not obligated to take action,” she said, but if he chooses to bring a civil suit against Tutela, the AG would be the plaintiff.

“We can’t force the attorney general to bring any action,” she said. “He might come back looking for litigation,” which would require school committee deliberation behind closed doors.

Livdahl said the committee’s decision to contact the AG office is not necessarily the only action it will take, and that the statute of limitations is broad in that area.

She said in the meantime, committee members are working on a number of new policies for central office spending that address all the concerns cited in the IG report.